Although the term cloud is still a little vague to some people, most companies have a good handle on what it means and its various parts: infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS). That does not mean however that all companies know what data they want to move to the cloud, or which of the –aaS they want to deploy.

To help you decide whether and what to use in the cloud, here is a list of the top five considerations.

Vendor Lock In. Vendor lock-in, while perfectly understandable from the vendors’ point of view, is one of the most expensive boondoggles a company can ever find itself mired in. Vendor lock-in happens in both on-premise and cloud scenarios, of course. But there are a number of nasty vendor tricks you should be aware of in the cloud. One of their favorites is to make your data unreadable outside their product. Make sure anything you put in the cloud, you can move or remove later without incident or undue expense. Better still, look for cloud services that integrate well with products and services from other vendors to avoid this and other problems.

Security and compliance. These are the two big bugaboos in cloud computing. If you are in a heavily regulated industry or are interested in fully securing your data and processes, rest assured that such can be done in the cloud but that you must be diligent in verifying their security and compliance practices. Ultimately, the law will hold your company and not the cloud provider responsible. If you are still not comfortable with putting everything in the cloud for security or compliance reasons, consider a blended solution or a hybrid cloud solution (part on-premise and part in the cloud).

Migration effort and related costs. Moving data to the cloud is not a magic trick that a company can just snap their fingers and make happen. Just as Google had to transfer data to the NSA via file transfer protocol (FTP) or physically transport it on disks, so too will your company have to physically move your data. Be sure you understand what that process will be and what costs that may entail before you make a move to the cloud. But don’t let those costs scare you away entirely. After all, you have to move, backup and archive data if you keep it on premise too, so there is no such thing as escaping data migration and storage costs entirely. Just sayin’ consider all costs before you decide what to do, but remember to compare apples to apples in your cost comparisons too.

Capex vs Opex. The pay-per-use aspect of the cloud means not only that you can cut costs overall but that the costs also move from a capital expenditure (capex) to an operating expense (opex) which is a huge plus in budgeting IT investments. In other words, the cloud brings you more than one dose of budget relief so remember that when you’re deciding whether to make the move.

The cloud is agile but you’ll still need some customization. It is not uncommon for a company to buy into a cloud service because its initial cost is cheap and maintenance is nil only to find that customization costs robbed them of any savings in the end. In short, this is a reminder that not all cloud services and vendors are created equal. As part of your due diligence, make sure you understand how much customization you’ll need and what costs that entails. Obviously, selecting a provider that offers easy customization and integration on the user end is a huge plus.

There are other considerations as well, but these are the five biggies. If you work yourself intelligently and diligently through the details before you sign up, you’ll find the cloud a great resource.